Law school: a waste of time?

July 29, 2008

Law.com’s daily Legal Blog Watch arrives with a piece headlined ‘Spence: Law School is a Fraud’.

Blade spluttered over his morning coffee. Alex Spence, the Timesonline law editor, can be a robust cove, but what research could he have uncovered to prove that law school is such a colossal waste of time? And even if the evidence existed, was it really in his or the Timesonline’s interests to publish it?

Fortunately, the Spence in question turns out to be Wyoming trial lawyer Gerry, whose laudable aim is “to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others”. Accordingly, Gerry Spence lambasts US law school as “a $100,000 fraud”. He also echoes yesterday’s post about story-telling in PR when he says that “The trial of a case, in its simplest form, is telling a story jurors can understand.” Which is fine, but what of law school, even on this side of the pond? Is it such a waste of time and money?

law-students.jpgDid they waste their time? The law student graduation class of Howard University Washington, D.C, c. 1900, courtesy of PingNews.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.